Sunday, October 12, 2014

Sexual abuse allegations shut down football season at New Jersey school, Hidden Marks: A study of women students’ experiences of harassment, stalking, violence and sexual assault

- Sexual abuse allegations shut down football season at New Jersey school
- Seven Sayreville football players suspended amid abuse scandal at New Jersey school
- Campus nightmare: female students on the rise of sexual harassment
- Hidden Marks
A study of women students’ experiences of harassment, stalking, violence and sexual assault
- NUS research reveals one in four students suffer unwelcome sexual advances

Sexual abuse allegations shut down football season at New Jersey school
October 10, 2014, by CNN Wire
SAYREVILLE, N.J. — The crunching sound of football cleats on hallway floors became the drone of dread for freshman at a New Jersey high school. As they marched into the locker room, an ugly hazing ritual allegedly awaited them.

Upperclassmen howled as they flipped off the lights then sexually abused their younger classmates at Sayreville High School, parents and players say.
Authorities are investigating, and the school’s superintendent has canceled the successful team’s football season.
The coach and officials won’t comment on details of the abuse, but it may have gone on for a year. A Sports Illustrated article indicated that it likely did not involve intercourse.

Seven Sayreville football players suspended amid abuse scandal at New Jersey school
The announcement came an hour before a vigil was to be held in town for the victims of the alleged hazing ritual. BY Bill Price NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Sunday, October 12, 2014

The seven Sayreville football players arrested over the weekend have been suspended from school, Jonathan Busch, the lawyer for the school board said in a statement, according to The Home News Tribune.
“While we are legally restricted from speaking about individual students, it would be fair to say that any student arrested in connection with the matter involving the football program is suspended from Sayreville War Memorial High School, and we are in the process of arranging for an alternative education pending further investigation,” Busch said in the statement.
The announcement came an hour before a vigil was to be held in town for the victims of the alleged hazing ritual....

A joint statement from county prosecutor Andrew C. Carey and Sayreville Police Chief John Zebrowski on Saturday said “seven juveniles have been charged with juvenile delinquency arising from the attacks upon four victims in four separate incidents at Sayreville War Memorial High School.”
The statement said “three of the juveniles were charged with aggravated sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual contact, conspiracy to commit aggravated criminal sexual contact, criminal restraint and hazing for engaging in an act of sexual penetration upon one of the juvenile victims.”....http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/high-school/sayreville-suspended-school-report-article-1.1971879

Campus nightmare: female students on the rise of sexual harassment
Photographed in their beds, shamed on social media – and, for some female students, that’s just the beginning. So what are British universities doing about sexual harassment and assaults?
Sally Williams The Guardian, Friday 10 October 2014

....The extent of sexual assaults on British campuses emerged four years ago when the NUS published Hidden Marks: A Study Of Women Students’ Experiences Of Harassment, Stalking, Violence And Sexual Assault. One in seven respondents had experienced some form of serious physical or sexual assault, the report stated, and more than two-thirds had experienced some kind of verbal or nonverbal harassment in or around university. (The latest NUS survey revealed that 37% of women and 12% of men who responded said they had faced unwelcome sexual advances.) Being groped, having someone put their hand up your skirt at a club and sexual comments were so ubiquitous, the NUS concluded, they were almost a fact of life.

A report last year, by the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Office for National Statistics, stated that female students in full-time education are at higher risk of sexual violence than the general female population. A particularly hazardous time, experts believe, is freshers’ week, when newcomers are invited to a raft of social events. “They are extremely vulnerable,” says Dr Alison Phipps, director of gender studies at Sussex University and coauthor of That’s What She Said, a 2013 report on women students’ experience in higher education. “Some of them are away from home for the first time, are trying to make friends and don’t know the campus, don’t know the city.”....http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/11/campus-nightmare-female-students-rise-sexual-harassment

Foreword
Welcome to Hidden Marks, the first ever nationwide report into women students’ experience of harassment, stalking, violence and sexual assault. We decided to undertake this research because women aged 16–24 have a higher risk of experiencing domestic violence, but there appeared to be little awareness of this amongst students. We wanted to find out from women students themselves about their experiences. We wanted to understand what was happening on campus, in halls of residences, and in
students' unions, and we wanted to hear how women students felt about it.
In this report we provide a snapshot of the harassment and violence that a national sample of women students have faced whilst they have been at their current institution. The picture that we have revealed is disturbing. 14 per cent have experienced serious physical or sexual assault. 68 per cent have been subject to verbal or physical sexual harassment. Nearly one in four has experienced unwanted sexual contact.http://www.nus.org.uk/Global/NUS_hidden_marks_report_2nd_edition_web.pdf
NUS research reveals one in four students suffer unwelcome sexual advances
Monday 15 September 2014
NUS President, Toni Pearce today called on UK universities to join NUS in its work on tackling lad culture on UK campuses. The call comes as new research reveals that one in four students (26 per cent) have suffered unwelcome sexual advances, defined as inappropriate touching and groping.

More than a third of women students (37 per cent) said they had faced unwelcome sexual advances.
In the survey of over 2,000 men and women students almost one third of respondents said they endure unwanted sexual comments about their body (12 per cent of men, 37 per cent of women).
Two thirds of respondents said they have seen students put up with unwanted sexual comments, with just under one third bearing witness to verbal harassment based on a student’s gender.